


Weakling Ascendant

by wizardslexicon



Series: Standing Divided [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: (nami is a huge lesbian and you Cannot Take That Away From Me), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Girls Gettin' Buff, Half-Assed Attempts To Science Up One Piece Weather, Navigation as a Way of Life, POV Female Character, POV Queer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizardslexicon/pseuds/wizardslexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something innately satisfying in being a suave lady pirate whose only true love is the sea (and that one girl, that one time) in a place where no one's ever seen the ocean. Redux of Nami's Strawhat Separation arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakling Ascendant

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as usual to trafaldude @ tumblr for being a massive help with editing and feedback, as well as to the general fandom, for opening my eyes to the glory known as "Nami as gay and One Piece would be better if she was more muscular and got to keep her scars". If that's a thing. Nami Squad, disperse!

Nami had to be honest with herself—when she’d realized Luffy wanted the crew to train for two years and she found herself on an sky island filled with weather experts, she’d expected to do quality control on the experts; however, she hadn’t thought about if the weather experts would want to evaluate _her_.

Weatheria wasn’t a large island. The only real landmarks were the Meteorological College on the highest point of the island, residential areas sprinkled below, and endless gardens of Weather Balls. Most of the other available space consisted of small open spaces for community gatherings that doubled as a place where measurement-reading equipment was frequently set up.

But as most of the scholars were of excessive age and the youth were known for their tempestuous moods, the ruling council of Weatheria was selected in a manner that would better fit a much larger island. The council had two houses, an elder and a younger; only the very old or teenage could serve, and it was these ten, split evenly by gender, that Nami faced now.

“Pirate of the Blue Sea, ‘Cat Burglar’ Nami,” read the Head of the elder House, a venerable old woman. “Why should we allow an outlaw who attempted theft on our grounds to study with us?” At least a few of the other elders agreed with her in murmuring voices. Nami saw her chances slipping away until a loud cough came from the younger house. “I yield the floor,” said the elder Head.

“What’s wrong with letting her study here?” came a passionate cry from the youth House almost immediately. “She has a Log Pose, so she has to be a navigator. She can share her personal experience with us!” The elders stroked their chins almost as one while the youths nodded agreement.

“She’s damn fine, too,” said another voice from the youth House. “‘Cat Burglar’, eh? I’d like to stroke _her_ kitty.” Nami twitched, and several of the elders did, too. After a moment’s thought, Nami memorized the voice. She was going to find that speaker later, and when she did...

“The youth House yields the floor,” said the first speaker, but the elders waved their  hands for discussion instead. For several long minutes, the two Houses debated. Nami did her best not to listen, lest she burst out, and instead turned to survey the rest of the room. There was a gigantic blackboard behind her, on the wall opposite the seats of the council, presumably for people to present the fruits of their research on. Nami wandered over to it and looked at the problem, which hadn’t been solved by whoever was doing it. Picking up the chalk on a whim and looking over the problem, she began to talk to herself as she wrote.

“Not familiar with this notation,” she muttered, pushing hair from her eyes, “but that looks like the saline density constant, so if we use the equation for the relationship between humidity and salinity and sub that in we’ll get the amount of moisture on the substrate, which I’ll just subtract from the final value...” Nami wrote fast, but her handwriting was exceptionally neat and in almost perfectly straight lines. She got so absorbed in doing the problem that she didn’t notice the council fall silent behind her. “And so the atmospheric pressure during a meteor storm in Paradise that occurs simultaneously with a thunderstorm is fifteen percent below the standard value!” she announced to herself, putting down the chalk. She turned to see the council staring at her open-mouthed, youth and elders alike.

“Did you, uh,” stammered an elder. “Just solve that problem?”

“Even though the problem itself wasn’t even written there?” asked one of the youths, eyes nearly bugging out. Nami shrugged her shoulders.

“I was bored.”

“I have seen enough,” said the Head of the elder House, shaking her head and smiling faintly. “All in favor of admitting ‘Cat Burglar’ Nami into the College of Meteorology?” Ten hands shot into the air. “Motion passes. I move to have our newest student instructed personally by the Thunderheads.” Silence fell. The youth Head, a young man with long black hair, stood up.

“Now, look here,” he said, and Nami recognized him as the creep from earlier by his voice. “ _Residents_ of this island are not granted permission to study under the Thunderheads until we’re thirty! Why would we trust information that dangerous in the hands of an outsider?”

“Now, Valter,” began the elder Head. “You know well that all knowledge is dangerous in the right hands. Nami is a pirate; if we taught this child the water cycle she would no doubt weaponize it. The knowledge of the Thunderheads is more easily applied to war, but I trust that she has already learned enough of hate to stay her hand where it is not needed. Am I correct?” Nami nodded, and found herself surprised to be telling the truth.

“And you trust her word?” spat Valter. “You’ve gone soft, Areisa.”

“And you’ve gone senile, Valter. There is no other way you could have forgotten what happened the last time we granted the learning of the Thunderheads to one who lacked discipline. We lost too many to Enel. We will lose no more. I would like to amend my motion: Nami will be taught by the Thunderheads, but if she displays behavior beyond the reasonable limits of caution, she will be cast off the island. All in favor?” This vote was split. Most of the youth voted Nami’s acceptance, with the notable exception of Valter; and most of the elders voted her rejection,with the notable exception of Areisa. Nami passed by a majority of two and was told she would quarter in the house of one of the Thunderheads.

After the council filed out, Areisa and Nami were left alone in the room. The old woman was small, but clever-eyed, with wispy white hair and a broad, weathered face. She clambered down from the platform, took Nami by the elbow, and lead her to the blackboard. She took the chalk and added several notes to Nami’s work, finally circling her answer.

“You were off,” she said, eyes twinkling, “by five.” Nami flushed down to her toes.

“Why didn’t you tell the other council members?” she asked, realizing how lucky she’d gotten. Areisa smiled and picked up the eraser, slowly destroying all the evidence that the problem had ever been solved.

“Because I like you,” she said, “and we young ladies ought to look out for each other. I am Areisa, High Nimbus of the Thunderheads. You’ll be staying with me and my family during your studies. I trust that will suffice?”

 

The Thunderheads, as it turned out, were an elite group of six meteorologists, something like a council specifically for the College. Studying under them was completely forbidden for residents under the age of thirty, and even after that age it was an incredible privilege. Only the greatest geniuses with a sense of social responsibility were admitted to their study. Nami was the only student they currently taught.

Areisa, as the High Nimbus, was their leader and most skilled member. It quickly transpired that Areisa was something like the most important person on Weatheria, and the fact that Nami had her favor opened any number of doors for her, many of which Nami was delighted to go through. The seamstresses of Weatheria were delighted to have a willing, cheerful test dummy for their new designs, and the young ladies enjoyed undressing the test dummy as much as the seamstresses enjoyed the opposite.

Nami’s first encounter with Valter ended poorly for both. He cornered her in an alley with harsh words and vague threats of violence. Nami was not the type to take to being threatened: a Thunder Lance Tempo later, she had been given a demerit for setting a poor example, which was shortly retracted after it was discovered that Valter was carrying a knife at the time. He had been clapped in the stocks for a week, and Nami gained new notoriety as a mover and shaker on the small island.

A few weeks later, Valter approached her and asked if she wanted to exercise with him in the mornings. Nami hesitantly agreed and she began getting an entirely different kind of education: the kind that involved pectorals and having noticeable abs. While it was a new feeling, Nami began to enjoy being able to lift people effortlessly—not to mention the slowly decreasing amount of leers as the body fat in her breasts made way for muscle.

She didn’t spend all her time chasing girls, working out, and trying on clothes, though, not by a long shot. While she was a fan of layered skirts and cute shirts, Nami spent most of her time wasting the fine garments inside the central tower of the College, the highest point on the island, studying intently. The Thunderheads were hard teachers. For all that Areisa liked Nami, she was incredibly strict. During one particular instance, Nami burst into tears over a problem of such complexity that five sheets of paper hadn’t been enough to complete it.

“What are you crying for, child?” asked Areisa, sweeping over. The other Thunderheads, males all, cooed in sympathy as Nami choked out an explanation. Areisa nodded, picking up Nami’s work and shuffling through it. “Very well. I will give you a different problem.

“The location is the New World. You, as well as all other members of your crew, are cruising around in a calm stretch. Very suddenly, you approach an area of the ocean where the air smells like ozone. Your crew turns to you to ask the source of the smell, and you guess lightning; you did not study hard enough, and found your knowledge in this area lacking. Very shortly, lightning begins to fall as thick and heavy as rain. It is bright enough to blind and loud enough to deafen those it does not affect otherwise; eventually, the heat will melt down even the most resilient people. The probability of survival is zero.

“Here is your question: what are the odds that your crew will give a solitary damn about how you feel about a tedious problem in the afterlife?” Nami shook her head.

“Zero percent,” she managed to say, though her heart had gone cold and empty even from the hypothetical. Areisa nodded.

“Correct. For what it is worth...this very thing happened when my husband and son encountered Enel. Now start over.” As she spoke, she tossed Nami’s papers into the small fireplace in the tower. Nami hesitated, wiped away her tears, and picked up a new sheaf of papers, taking to the problem with new dedication. An hour later, when she had picked up the correct solution and retreated to Areisa’s home, Areisa took her aside, giving her a warm cup of tea and cookies.

“I should not have been so harsh,” she began, but Nami cut her off.

“Forgive my rudeness, teacher,” she replied, “But you were exactly right.” Areisa flinched, and then sighed long through her nose.

“What does the Blue Sea do to its children?” mused the woman, mostly to itself. “What good can such warlike beings do in this world? What can they do that children born of peace cannot?”

“They can kick ass,” said Nami firmly. “Enel? My captain sent him to the _moon_ , with a fist in his face for good measure.” Areisa folded her hands together, and pursed her lips.

“I really shouldn’t feel so good about that,” she said, giving Nami a smile as she left the room. As she walked off into the hallway, Nami distinctly heard “But I do!” and laughed to herself before sitting back in bed to think about the children of the sea. She was only among her thoughts for a few minutes, though: another, heavier set of footsteps came down the hallway, and shortly Terari, Areisa’s granddaughter, popped into the doorway. Terari had the voluminous hair Usopp often said his mother had possessed, the sort Areisa had as a younger woman, and was a few shades lighter than Usopp and Vivi; clearly Brown rather than Black

“You busy?” Terari asked. Her mouth was constantly curled from a smile that never quite left, and she had large, expressive eyes to match her broad face, eyes that were currently smiling down at Nami from the door. Nami smiled back up at them.

“Not at all. C’mere and share these cookies with me.” Terari entered the room with her usual bouncy gait and climbed onto the bed next to Nami, stretching one arm over her stomach and resting her head on her chest and poking her stomach and the fine red hairs there.

“You’re hard,” whined Terari. “No more weight training!” Nami laughed and fed her a cookie before relaxing her body a little more. Terari noticably sank in, and they both sighed a bit, getting comfortable. After Nami fed her another cookie, Terari piped up again. “Hey, you’re a suave lady pirate. Tell me about your adventures on Mother Sea.” Nami grinned.

“Long story. But I like telling it.” And so she began. She told a sky islander who had never seen war or the sea about being found on a battlefield and being raised by a warrior who loved peace; told her of losing the only mother she knew to a pirate’s bullet, and working for every beli she had to get to free her village from that pirate’s oppression. Nami spoke gently of her first meeting with a shortish boy with a huge smile and the idiot swordsman by his side, and of gaining a sniper who used a slingshot. A smiling cook who smelled like smoke and cinnamon and had dreamers’ eyes. Her tears as she left it all for duty.

She showed her girlfriend the scar on her shoulder where the knife had pierced her, and the place where more scars would be if a hand had not stopped hers. She spoke of Luffy’s destruction of Arlong Park, and made no attempt to stop her slowly falling tears. She told of meeting a whale, a doctor, and a secret agent at Reverse Mountain, and of finding a princess as Whiskey Peak.

“Vivi was...” Nami’s words, which flowed so freely before, seemed to dry up in her throat. “Marvelous,” she said, finally. “I didn’t have any room in my life for those kinds of feelings before her, just ink and storms and pain and money. But when I looked at the moonlight on her collarbones, I saw the sea in perfect calm, and I reached out and brought forth seven years of storms...” Nami closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. “Well. It’s like they say back in East Blue; love is a hurricane.” Terari was perfectly silent beneath her, and so Nami plowed on, speaking of Baroque Works and countries without rain; of stopping wars and gaining scars from spike; of bombs, and a Warlord of the Sea who was laid low by a rubber man with an unstoppable will to live.

“I think that’s when I found out how incredible Luffy really is,” she said, on a brief aside. “He saved me, but there are hundreds of people on the ocean who would have made mincemeat of ‘Sawtooth’ Arlong; to take down a Warlord takes another class of pirate. Luffy isn’t like anyone else I’ve ever met. I’d follow him into hell just to see how far we could go.” Nami smiled fiercely. “And I’d be his navigator even though a sea of fire.

“Anyway, Vivi was a princess, and couldn’t come with us when we left Alabasta. So we said farewell to her in the only way we could.” Nami gripped her right wrist in her left hand and smiled. “We showed her the sign of our companionship.” And she said no more on the subject. Instead, she moved on to her new bedmate in Vivi’s absence; Crocodile’s second, All-Sunday. Nico Robin was different. Older, wiser, but sad and guarded inside somewhere untouchable but drawing ever nearer.

Nami swept through Jaya and the cherry pie man easily, told of Skypeia and legends with a casual air. Even the Davy Back Fight didn’t give her much pause, beyond Admiral Aokiji’s warning. But her next moment of emotion came when she told of the events at Water 7.

“We saved Robin, sure. But it was more than that. We lost Usopp, but even then he stood with us. We lost Robin, and she came with us. We lost Merry, but they didn’t abandon us until the very last moment we had to let go. At Enies Lobby, we all nearly died, but more than that, we discovered that we were, one and all, prepared to die for each other. That was critical later. But for then, we returned to Water 7, built a ship that could brave any sea, and met Luffy’s grandpa, who was this famous Marine hero. Funny, right?” Terari did laugh. The irony was fairly striking.

“Anyway, we went to the Florian Triangle so we could get to Sabaody Archipelago and then to Fishman Island and the New World. And in the triangle, there was another Warlord, this guy named Moriah, and his zombie army, and of course we had to fight them or it wouldn’t be any fun. Well, actually, I got kidnapped, and Sanji tried to save me and got into this fight with an invisible zombie lecher, but I woke up when the dumbass dropped me, and me and San finished him off together. He tried to tell the others he did it himself anyway, but that’s boys for you.

“Where was I? Right, Moriah’s zombie army. Turns out he had a fucking _zombie giant_. And not just any zombie giant, the zombie of the giantest giant to ever giant on the Grand Line. And we killed that fucker. We killed him _so dead_. Again.” Nami seemed to take great relish in the fact. “And the Luffy took out Moriah, and we were all about ready to pass out when another Warlord showed up. Bartholomew Kuma. He hit us with one attack and we all got K.O’d, but he didn’t kill any of us. I guess he might’ve tried to off Zoro, since he was hurt really bad when we all woke up, but Zoro’s...honestly, between you and me, I think he never learned how to die and he’s too dumb to figure it out.” Nami laughed a bit to herself. She didn’t notice that Terari had long since gone to sleep.

“So we got to Sabaody, did some shopping, saved a mermaid from slavery. I met more Fishmen, but...I couldn’t really hold a grudge against them, you know? Most Fishmen who hate humans only do because of things we’ve done to them. It was different for me, but I haven’t met a Fishman yet who hated me for what they’ve been through at the hands of humans. They deserve better than that from me.

Anyway, we got knocked all over the place by that Kuma guy after he showed up again. Luffy did some more crazy stuff, and his hot brother died, and now we’re all training to be ready for the New World. And that’s about it.” Nami ate a cookie. There was something valuable about telling the story, she’d found. She’d realized all over again what was important in her life. Remembering Areisa’s “problem” from earlier, she reached over to her nightstand, picked up a book on deep sea currents, and read until she fell asleep there.

 

The next day, Nami was lifting weights with Valter, who claimed that his attitude had gotten a lot less pissy when Nami had turned out to be struggling with her lessons from the Thunderheads as much as the College students struggled with their own coursework. Nami personally credited the bolt of lightning through the chest, but didn’t hold a grudge against him, much. He handed her a twenty-pound dumbbell, and she handed it right back.

“I’m not here to fuck around,” she said, faux-serious. “Thirties. I’ve got a crew out there that doesn’t need a navigator who can’t curl thirty pounds ninety times.” Valter raised an eyebrow, but obeyed, watching Nami’s biceps flex as she worked out. Shaking his head at the folly of honor among pirates, he picked up a bar and lifted it, working up a nice sweat. As he did, Nami noticed some significant scarring hidden by his t-shirt, probably from the lightning she’d put through his chest. She almost felt guilty.

When they finished and separated for water and showers, Nami found the cool water pressing the salt and tension from her to be an unparalleled pleasure for reasons she couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t until she’d been there for forty-five minutes that she realized sky islands didn’t have weather, and that the feeling she’d been reminded of was rain. The creation of large-scale weather for a sky island wasn’t impossible—she could do it with the Perfect Clima Tact on a small scale. But all of Weatheria? Not likely. And so she began to formulate a plan.

Weatherians used Weather Balls to simulate weather effects, Nami knew, but as she threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top, she began to wonder how she could reproduce that effect in a portable way, like her Clima Tact. By the time she’s guzzled her second bottle of water, she was halfway to a schematic in her head. She was no Usopp when it came to designing gadgets, but she had the original to use as a reference, and by the time she got to the College, she already knew what she had to do.

Reaching the tower of the Thunderheads, she opened the door to her classroom with a crash and walked up to the blackboard, taking a piece of chalk and writing “Sorcery Clima Tact” on the top. After underlining it thrice, she took her Perfect Clima Tact off of her belt, laid it out, and began to sketch it, drawing arrows and explaining every part she could.

“Elder Timty,” she said, and an old man was startled from his attentive viewing of her work.

“Yes, Ms. Nami?” She didn’t stop writing, even as she slid the blackboard over for more space.

“Go get me the nine cardinal types of Weather Balls, please.” They all knew what Nami was like when she was on the warpath: her discovery of a known principle of New World islands’ magnetic fields had nearly caused a cyclone in the room a week prior. Timty shuffled for the door like his life depended on it. For all he knew, it did.

Nami broke open the bulbs on the ends of each section of her staff and removed the dials. Each bulb contained three dials; these, Nami moved to the side of the table. Before she did anything else, she asked for a few more materials: a resin, and special Wind Rings, which would make air that passed through it stronger. She coated the interior of each segment with the resin to reduce friction and placed the dials in this resin as it dried, spaced evenly apart. Carefully, using a lathe, she made grooves in the sections of the staff so they would fit together, then left the sections in place and took the broken shards of the bulbs and moved them elsewhere.

After a moment’s thought and a glance at the board, Nami put on a gas mask, ordering the Thunderheads to follow suit, and removed the dark blue outer shell of the Clima Tact and took it over to the furnace, where she melted it down and let it rest there..

“I need a hollow cylindrical mold two hundred centimeters long, four centimeters in diameter, with the hollow inside three inches in diameter,” said Nami briskly. A few more elders ran off to do this, and Timty returned with her Weather Balls, which she counted carefully. “Cumulus, Stratus, Cumulonimbus, Dry Heat, Dry Cold, Human Temperature, Humidity, Static, and Template,” she counted off. “You’re a dear, Timty. Get a gas mask.” She blew him a kiss and placed all the Weather Balls on dials, one for each. “Perfect! Now twist the rod to activate the dial and produce the condition, allows for mixing and matching with greater variation and Wind Rings for range...what am I missing?” Nami folded her arms and tapped a bicep with her index finger. She realized it after a solid five minutes of silent thought. “If it can’t function as a close range weapon, it’s pointless!” She called for some gold wire, and threaded lengths of it around the insides of each.

Satisfied, Nami turned to the casings. Helpful Thunderheads had poured out the melted material to cool, and with cool air from Weather Balls assisting, they were almost ready. Nami coated the layer between the cooled casing and the Weather-producing interior with the resin and slid the interiors into the casing molds. Finally, she capped the sections with Wind Rings on the ends, completing the circuit made by the gold wire. Any electrical effects she made would also go to the ends, making each segment a two-sided stun rod. She’d gotten the idea from Enel, but it was nonetheless valid.

She left the segments to cool, but asked the elders to carve the segments to fit together with a lathe, and fuse shut the two ends so she could still use it as a staff without harming the delicate insides. On those ends, of course, there were no Rings. Her work completed, Nami passed out in a soft armchair, exhausted by hours of physical and intellectual labor.

 

Nami’s time for departure came before she was quite ready to leave Weatheria. It had become something like a home away from home, especially after she’d covered the island in rain, and even though she was excited to see how everyone had changed, it was also going to be bittersweet to leave her new Weatherian friends. With her new haircut and bangs, she figured she’d be a cute twin to Robin, and her suit-jacket-over-swimsuit-top and jeans look would probably be a big hit with Usopp, who was usually the only person she was ever trying to impress. He might be weak, but Usopp knew clothes like he knew...just about everything else, come to think of it.

Nami descended to the Blue Sea on a road of clouds she made with her new Sorcery Clima Tact, waving to the Weatherians as she left. Areisa shed any number of tears, and Nami did, too, knowing she’d miss the incredibly smart old lady terribly. Valter, standing next to a tearful Terari, leaned over.

“Why don’t you go with her?” he asked her. “That cloud road isn’t gone yet. Do what you want to.” But Terari shook her head and smiled in spite of the pain.

“There wouldn’t be any point to my going with her,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Her heart belongs in Alabasta.”

 

Fishmen, swarming by the hundreds, advanced on the Strawhats and their allies on Fishman Island. The odds were grim, but the pirates’ new strength was showing itself now.

“Hey, don’t hide behind us!” screeched Usopp. Nami grinned and gripped her staff, arms bulging with newly gained muscle as she twisted the rod.

“Who said I was hiding? Sorry, Mr. Longnose, I’ve left the Weakling Trio!” She launched herself into the air with a burst of wind and began tossing the sections of her staff around, preparing effects with practiced speed. “Who’s ready to get wet?” There was an enormous thunderclap, and rain showered the enemy Fishmen by the hundreds. The crackle of light was the only hint toward the coming destruction: hundreds of bolts of lightning in a continuous assault poured over a huge swath of the assembled force, spreading both by the falling rain and the huge amount of water in the bodies of Fishmen. “Today’s forecast: _Thunder Volley Tempo!_ ” crowed Nami, coming to earth smoothly and landing on her feet, much like the cat she was nicknamed for. Usopp blinked at what he eyeballed to be four hundred unconscious Fishmen.

“Holy shit. Fist bump.” Nami stuck out her tongue and touched knuckles with him.

“‘Cat Burglar’ Nami is back in action, baby.” And as Nami surveyed the results of her training, she had to think that the probability of her crew being proud of her was one-hundred percent.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Nami Squad, assemble!  
> The part of this story referencing a Nami and Sanji tag team was inspired by http://trelldraws.tumblr.com/post/90804614744/self-indulgent-trash-comics-an-ongoing-series-i this comic. Trell is awesome, by the way, go follow zem.


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